


some of you weren't raised to be assassins and it shows

by drakefeathers



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Court of Owls, Gen, Past Child Abuse, Talon!Dick, cass logic: absolutely we will, damian logic: adopt this zombie man, dick is a talon but not an Evil talon you dig, who is evil dick grayson i don't know her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 09:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17485172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drakefeathers/pseuds/drakefeathers
Summary: Cass and Damian adopt a grown undead Talon!Dick before Bruce can change his mind and adopt him first.





	some of you weren't raised to be assassins and it shows

“Damian Wayne, the Court of Owls has sentenced you to die.”

Pinned and bleeding on the floor, his twisted leg likely broken and a gleaming knife an inch from his throat, Damian almost smiles. It was a good fight. The most exhilarating he’s had since he came to Gotham. And it’s not over yet, despite what this smug Talon might think.

The Talon surely didn’t expect Bruce Wayne’s son to be a challenging target, but Damian wasn’t just going to let himself be killed while lying in bed, or worse, run away like a coward, no matter what his father might say about the importance of preserving their secret identities. 

He waits for the movement—the shifting of weight, the unlocking wrist and the first whisper of the knife’s edge. Waiting for his opening to counterstrike. But it doesn’t happen. The Talon holds the knife near his throat but brings it no closer. 

He loses patience. 

“Well? Are you trying to kill me or not?” he snaps. If this useless assassin takes any longer he’s going to bleed out from his battle wounds first.

“Finish it,” commands another voice. A second Talon emerges from the shadows in the corner of the room. “You’ve toyed with the child long enough.”

The first Talon hesitates, glancing from his partner back to Damian. He’s so close that Damian can see his wide, uncertain eyes behind the tinted glass in his goggles. He lowers his knife. “N-No.”

“You have your orders,” says the second coolly, drawing a dagger of his own. “And if you won’t follow them, I’ll follow mine.” He grabs Damian by the throat and lifts him up. His grip is like an iron vice. As Damian hangs there, choking and staring at the gleam of the blade, he realizes belatedly just how much the first Talon was holding back. “I’ll deal with you once I’ve eliminated the target. Damian Wayne, the Court of Owls has sentenced you to die.”

“No,” says the first Talon. His voice doesn’t falter this time. “I won’t let you.” It’s the last thing Damian hears before he blacks out.

 

* * *

 

Damian scowls up at his father from his hospital bed in the cave, arms crossed stubbornly. “He saved my life.” 

Bruce’s forehead is lined and weary, making him appear older than Damian has ever seen him. He seems pained to look at Damian all bandaged and battered, his leg in a cast and his swollen neck ringed with bruising. Shame twists in Damian’s chest at his own weakness. How disappointed his father must be to have a defeated failure of a son. 

“He’s an assassin of the Court, Damian,” says Bruce patiently. “He tried to kill you, and he could try again.”

“Are you even listening to me?” Damian snaps hoarsely. “He was going to kill me, but he _stopped_ , and instead he turned on the other one, his partner. I know assassins better than you do, Father, and they don’t just _do_ that. Never.”

“From what we know about the Talons, many were taken forcibly as children and indoctrinated into being loyal servants of the Court. What happened to them is…” Bruce presses his mouth into a grim line. “I wish it were possible to help them. The ones we’ve encountered are beyond reasoning with. This Talon might have rejected his training, but it’s too soon to know for sure, and until then we have to treat him as a threat. He’s too dangerous.”

“I’m going to speak with him,” Damian decides, sitting up to leave the bed. The cast on his leg makes moving troublesome but he won’t let a little thing like a fractured bone get in his way.

“ _Damian_ ,” Bruce says warningly, reaching to grab his arm. Damian shoves his hand away.

“I said, I’m going to—“ But he stops dead at the sound of Alfred’s stern, disapproving voice coming from the staircase landing.

“Master Damian! Get back in that bed this instant!”

 

* * *

 

Unmasked, the Talon looks quite young. He sits motionless on the cot in his cell, his unnerving yellow eyes cast down. Though he must be aware he’s being watched through the mirrored pane of glass, he doesn’t seem to care. No expression shows on his face. His grey, veined skin could be carved from marble. 

Tim steps away from the glass to let Damian and Bruce closer. Damian struggles with his crutches, impatient to get on with this before his father and Alfred change their minds.

“He hasn’t said a word yet,” Tim tells them, nodding at their captive. “He hasn’t even _breathed,_ as far as I can tell. But good luck.”

Damian scoffs. “As if you have any skill for interrogation.” He clears his throat and raps on the glass with his knuckles. “You there. Talon.” The assassin looks up blankly. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

He’s silent for a long time, long enough that they think he won’t answer, frowning at his reflection in the mirrored glass until he has to avert his eyes. “… I couldn’t,” he says finally.

“And why not? It’s your job.”

 “I’ve never been good at this job,” he confesses, so softly that they have to strain to hear.

“What does that mean?” asks Tim. But the Talon doesn’t answer. He hangs his head again, silent and accepting, as though waiting for a blade to fall and end him.

Damian rounds on Tim angrily. “Now look what you’ve done, Drake. You ruined everything. Why do you—“ He’s silenced by a stern look from Bruce. So is Tim, when he tries to retort.

Bruce presses the light switch to let himself be seen. The Talon doesn’t even glance up at them. “What’s your name?”

“But, Father,” Damian begins to protest, “This is _my_ interrogation—“ But he’s silenced with another look of warning. 

“Your name,” Bruce orders the Talon again, with the same grating edge to his voice that he uses when dangling perps over rooftops.

Tim and Damian are astonished when the Talon gives an answer. “Dick Grayson.”

Focused with such fascination on the Talon, Damian doesn’t notice the haunted expression that flashes across his father’s face at the name, or the alarmed look that Tim shoots at Bruce. Both last only a fleeting second, and neither says a word.

 

* * *

 

 

They’ve gotten the Talon to start talking about the Court by the time Cass returns from patrol. After hearing how Damian was attacked, she worried about him her whole way home, and now stands beside him to get a closer look. She can see every cough Damian holds back, and can tell from the way he’s standing that his leg is aching in its cast. 

“You should be in bed,” she tells him quietly. The sight of his vividly bruised neck pains her. She wishes she had been here to help him, no matter how adamant he always is about not needing any.

“Leave me alone,” he grumbles, refusing to look at her.  

“I eliminated my first two targets as ordered,” the Talon is saying hollowly. “I knew they were bad people, enemies to the Court and the city. I did my job. I felt nothing. But the third… He’d done nothing wrong. He was frightened. I couldn’t do it, so the Court punished me and sent me again to finish the task. When I still couldn’t follow orders, they… retired me.” He looks down at his hands, at the cold, dead, grey skin. “This was my last chance. They said if I failed again, I wouldn’t be put back to sleep. I would be terminated.”

“How long were you in stasis?” asks Bruce.

“I’m not sure,” he says, frowning as he tries to remember. “I never thought I would wake up. I haven’t heard of it happening before. But, now… They’re deploying everyone.”

 

* * *

 

They return to the main cave after the questioning, Bruce wordlessly heading straight for the computer to verify the Talon’s information. 

“Father,” Damian says loudly, standing beside Bruce’s chair and trying to get his attention as he types rapidly. “Father, we have to keep him.”

“ _Keep_ _him_?” Tim asks incredulously. “Like you kept the cat, and the cow? You’re moving on to assassins now? The cave is crowded enough.”

Damian tries to take a swing at Tim with one of his crutches, and only succeeds in nearly toppling himself over. “Shut up, Drake! This is different.”

Bruce turns in his chair, making both of them behave with a narrowing of his eyes. “Tim is right, Damian. The Talon is not another stray, he’s a person. One that’s a danger to himself and others.”

"He can help us—we can destroy the Court of Owls for good with everything he knows. And we can help him,” Damian insists, his voice rising with frustration. “You keep telling me to have more compassion for those we fight against, and now that I’m trying you think I’m wrong.”

“We aren’t the right people to help him. Based on what we know of the Court, it will take a miracle of rehabilitation before he can be considered anything less than dangerous. He needs doctors and a secure facility.” Bruce turns toward the computer screens. In his short time here, Damian has noticed bitterly that it’s his father’s favourite way to end an argument. By turning his back on it. On Damian. “I know he's not like the others. There’s a chance that one of the lives destroyed by the Court can be salvaged. And I’m glad to see that you care about him, but I’ve learned years ago that you can’t make others change just by caring.”

“Then why have you spent every day since we’ve met trying to change _me_ , Father? What has been the point of all these lessons and lectures if it’s impossible? Am I a lost cause in your eyes, just like him?” 

A long pause passes before Bruce replies, long enough for Damian to falter, his defiant posture sagging in vulnerability. “This is not the same.”

Damian steels himself again, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Yes, it is.”

 

* * *

 

While the others argue in the next room, Cass stays with the Talon, watching him through the glass. Just as she watched him while he answered Bruce's questions, trying to read him. 

He is different from the other Talons she’s fought in the past few nights. They’d been dead so long that something in them had rotted away, leaving them twisted, hollow puppets. They acted only to follow orders and felt nothing, not even pain. It had saddened her, and then made her angry, angry at those responsible. She will see the Court of Owls destroyed for that.

This Talon still has a spark of self that the others did not. She can see in his pained eyes and the tension in his shoulders that he’s fighting a battle between his training and his long-buried conscience. She also knows that he’s been telling them nothing but the truth.

"We're the same," she tells him, laying her palm on the glass barrier. He watches her warily. He doesn't believe her. "I was... made to do bad things, too."

He takes a breath like he's about to say something, but doesn't. She understands. There's nothing that can be said.

"What will happen to me?” he asks, after a while.

“You will stay with us. As a guest." Cass turns to Bruce as he returns. “He gets the bedroom next to me. I'll tell Alfred."

And then she calmly leaves the room before her stunned father can argue. Not that he could have won.

 

* * *

 

“And you’re lucky you didn’t see what he did to the other Talon. You know how hard those things are to kill, since they’re already dead. Poor Alfred had to clean up all the parts,” Tim tells Cass, sitting on the edge of her bed as she focuses intently on one of the books from the stack on her bedside table. “I’m just saying, I’m not sure I feel safe sleeping across the hall from an undead assassin.”

“Ex,” Cass corrects him, turning a page.

“Ex-assassin, okay. If you’re sure. Not that it makes much of a difference. Damian’s supposed to be an ex-assassin and I’ve barely survived sleeping in the same house as him. I have to take my utility belt to bed with me.” He flops backwards on the bed, arms spread wide, staring morosely at the ceiling. “Maybe I won’t sleep tonight, go down to the cave and get some work done instead…”

Cassandra casts him a meaningful glance.

“Oh, no. I know that look,” says Tim as he scrambles away from her. “You are not nerve-striking me and tucking me in. Not again.” 

“Go to bed,” she says sternly.

“Fine.” He heads for the door. “But I’m going to grab a Mr Freeze gun from the evidence room. Keep that under my pillow.”

Cass can’t let Tim leave without asking the question she’s been holding onto. She was waiting, not wanting to pry too much, and understanding that if he’s choosing to hide something from her it must be bothering him deeply. But she needs to know.

“You know him. The Talon,” she says, making him turn around. “How?”

Tim sighs. He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. “He and his parents performed in a circus, as acrobats. The Flying Graysons. I… I was there, the night his parents fell and died, and he disappeared right after. Bruce was there, too. He was sitting near us. I was very young, but I can still remember the look on his face when…” Tim bites his lip. His own expression is pained as he thinks about it. “It took me years to actually make the connection between Bruce and Batman, but it all started that night at the circus. If I hadn’t been there that night, I don’t think I would be where I am now.”

“He was a boy, back then?” asks Cass sadly. Tim nods. “He… disappeared. And Bruce never…”

“Never solved the case. Out of all the cold cases, I think that one hit him the hardest. I mean, he was _right there_. He could never completely let it go,” Tim says softly. Cass can tell Tim never did, either. “None of us imagined for a second that the kid had been abducted by Owls. The Court was still just a myth until a couple weeks ago.”

 

* * *

 

“Did you sleep well, sir?” the butler, Alfred, asks as he sets down a breakfast plate and a cup of tea in front of Dick. It’s past dawn and there’s no sign of the rest of the family in the dining room. They must be nocturnal, like he’s been for so many years. He can’t remember the last time he saw a sunrise. 

“I don’t really sleep. Anymore.”

Alfred raises an eyebrow, but seems unsurprised. “How efficient of you. I presume you eat?” 

“I— I think I can.” Dick realizes he hasn’t since he was reanimated. He picks up the teacup. It’s worth a try. “Yes. Thank you.”

He holds the cup in both hands for a long time, watching the steam rise. He can’t feel the heat of it at all. Maybe he’ll get used to the absence eventually.

“Is something the matter?” Alfred asks when he returns with a fresh pot and sees Dick sitting there, staring at the full cup.

Dick shakes his head and puts it down.

“You’ll be needing these once you’re finished your breakfast,” Alfred says with authority, pointing at the bucket and rags waiting by the door. “You made quite a mess in the library last night, fighting that other Talon. It’s only right you help me remove the stains.”

For what feels like the first time since he left the circus, Dick smiles. He thinks he likes this old man.

 

* * *

 

The Talon spends a lot of time standing at the window, as close to outside as he’s permitted to go. A suspicious amount of time, Damian thinks. He peers curiously around the doorframe from the hallway, waiting for the Talon to do something.

Alfred, walking by with a basket of laundry, stops to remark, “If I remember correctly, you told your father that you wished to help the man.”

“I said _we_ should help him,” grumbles Damian. He actually has no idea how to help, but he can’t admit that, not after all that time spent arguing about it.

“I think perhaps he could use someone to help him talk about what he’s feeling,” suggests Alfred, as if reading his mind. “Someone with similar experiences, who can empathize with the transition he is going through.”

“Talk?” Damian wrinkles his nose. “How bothersome.”

Alfred pats him on the shoulder. “You are so much like your father.”

Damian can’t decide whether to feel pleased or insulted.

Once Alfred is around the corner and safely out of earshot, Damian hobbles over to the Talon on his crutches and asks bluntly, “How many people have you killed? Just the two you said before, or were there others?”

The Talon blinks at him, his eyes wide in surprise, looking very owlish. “There were others,” he admits quietly. He frowns at Damian as though seeing something he hasn’t noticed before. “Have you—” 

Damian, just waiting to be asked, interrupts eagerly. “Yes. Plenty. I first took a life when I was—“ He stops abruptly, casting an annoyed glare around the room. “I’d tell you more, but Father has this entire house bugged and he gets upset when I speak of such things. He always says he blames himself, or some other ridiculous excuse. If he wants to blame himself over someone, it should be you.”

Before Dick can ask why, Cass clears her throat behind them, frowning at Damian with her arms crossed. Dick is confused—no one’s been able to sneak up on him since his second year of training.

“Damian,” she says disapprovingly. “You were… eavesdropping.”

“So what if I was?” he shoots back. They glare at each other challengingly for an excruciatingly long time. Damian is the first to look away. He lets out an unhappy ' _tt'_  noise and leaves.

“What did he mean about me and Bruce?” asks Dick.

“Bruce was there, when you went missing. At the circus,” explains Cass. “He tried to find you. Solve the case. But couldn’t. He’s felt guilt for years.”

In the first few months, the most gruelling part of the training, there were times Dick hoped someone would rescue him from the Court. Sometimes it was the police, sometimes Batman, sometimes it was his parents who held him and told him their deaths were only a bad dream. But he knew it was only a fantasy, and after a while he stopped wanting it. Stopped caring.

He wonders briefly—if he had known someone was searching, that Batman hadn’t given up on him…

Dick shakes his head. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. I made my choice.” He remembers the room full of owls promising him power and vengeance and belonging. Remembers shaking the Grandmaster’s hand while still splattered with his parents’ drying blood.

A hand squeezing his own pulls him back from the memories.

“No,” Cass says firmly. “You couldn’t choose. Too young.”

 

* * *

 

Dick easily catches the wrist that thrusts a knife towards him, and for a moment Damian dangles there by his arm, scowling, his crutches having fallen away. 

Behind the curtains wasn’t a very good hiding place for an ambush. If Dick were Damian he would have utilized the piano instead, or the large potted plant. Although no hiding place would have kept Dick from noticing him.

Dick wasn’t expecting to be attacked when he walked by. He thought Damian was just spying on him, like the boy has been doing not-so-secretively all day. He looks at the knife in his hand. He doesn’t know why Damian would try to stab him… unless it’s revenge for the other night?

He can’t stop staring at the knife. His hand clenches tightly around the handle. The Court’s last orders echo in the back of his mind, reminding him of his abandoned mission. It’s not too late. It would be so easy…

His grip loosens. He lowers Damian to the ground, picks up the crutches and helps him stand on his own again. “What was that for?” he asks.

“I want to see you regenerate,” Damian replies unapologetically. Dick came so close to killing Damian that his hands are shaking, but this boy doesn’t even seem ruffled by it.

Dick sighs. “Fine.” He drags the knife across his palm. Blood oozes out, thick and black like oil. He wipes it on his pants and shows Damian the unmarked skin.

“Does it hurt?”

“I don’t feel it at all.”

“Interesting,” Damian says, casting a resentful glance at the cast on his leg. Dick knows what he’s thinking, and feels sick. No amount of powers, not the healing or the speed or strength, are worth becoming what he is now.

There was a time when he _wanted_  this. To fulfill his years of service to the Court and join his predecessors as one of their immortal guardians. During his training he was reminded of his glorious destiny over and over, until he believed in it, and yearned for it. He can’t bear the way Damian looks at him—impressed, almost envious. Reminding him of how naive he once was.

“Don’t try to sneak up on me again,” he warns as he hurries away. He still has the knife.

 

* * *

 

Cold emanates from the cave’s stone walls. It’s one of the few sensations Dick can feel anymore, and the worst. It settles inside his skin and stays, his body unable to fight it. It reminds him that he’s dead.

Bruce called him down to talk. The man is wearing his Batman uniform, minus cape and cowl, and standing in front of a worktable laid out with all of Dick’s confiscated equipment, the knives and mask and armour Dick spent most of his life earning. His only possessions.

Bruce looks over as Dick walks toward him. The glare he gives is so chilling it seems to make the temperature drop by a few more degrees.

“Give it to me,” he orders, holding out his hand. “Now.”

Dick hesitates, but ultimately decides not to argue. He pulls out the knife he’s been keeping hidden in his sleeve and hands it over. 

Bruce examines the weapon. “This is Damian’s.”

“I took it from his room,” says Dick, in case the truth of nearly being stabbed with it will land Damian in trouble.

“Why were you there?”

“I was sent to tell him lunch was ready.”

Bruce frowns at him for a long time. “I don’t trust you,” he says, placing the knife down on the table and picking up Dick’s mask, inspecting the lenses in the goggles. Dick clenches his jaw as he fights a violent, unwanted urge to attack the man and take back what belongs to him. “But I trust Cassandra. She believes you deserve a chance, and she’s the best judge of character out of all of us.”

Remembering her sharp, bright eyes, Dick wonders what exactly she sees. She’s not normal. She can’t be.

“She also tends to look for the best in people, while I plan for the worst. That’s why I want you to know that if you so much as think about hurting anyone in this house, you’re in for a surprise.” Bruce’s voice is calm, matter-of-fact, as he continues examining the tools and weapons on the table. He doesn’t need to sound threatening, he just is.

Dick doubts he could actually be surprised. The Court kept him well briefed on Batman and his tricks. He expects that there’s a flash-freeze grenade hidden every few feet of the house, and one being carried by every member of the family on Bruce’s orders.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” says Dick truthfully. He only took the knife to have it. It made him feel more comfortable with his own being kept out of reach.

“You can start proving that to me by not carrying weapons while you’re a guest in my home. And by answering my questions about the Court.”

Every question Bruce asks feels like a test, and they seem endless. Questions about every Owl that Dick has come into contact with and every assassination he knows about, about Court bases and security, about their meetings and their internal hierarchy, about the other Talons. Eventually Bruce moves over to his computers and pulls up police files and city schematics to ask about. Dick may have been let out of the interrogation cell, but the interrogation hasn’t ended. 

There are no questions about Dick directly, nothing about his training or his time as a Talon. He wonders for whose sake that is. But only briefly, because then Bruce is impatiently telling him to look at pictures of high-profile individuals that died suspicious deaths over the past fifteen years.

Every question Dick answers is another betrayal. He reminds himself that he wants to do this, even as his stomach twists and his head pounds painfully, while an intrusive swarm of thoughts at the back of his mind blares out a warning that he’s making a mistake. It forces him to look at his uniform and gear laying on the table, so close, and asks why he’s throwing away everything he worked and bled and fought to gain. 

He tries to refocus by remembering the frightened faces of the people he killed, and the ones he chose not to. The sickening warmth of blood on his hands. He thinks of Damian, so young, just a boy, being strangled in front of him. He remembers the reasons he chose to defect, but it’s not enough—

“That’s a lie,” Bruce says sharply, looking away from the blueprints on the screen to glare at Dick. “Do not lie to me again. Where are the generators, actually?”

“I can’t…” Dick chokes out. “I belong to the Court. I’m nothing without them.”

“Is that the truth, or just what they’ve told you?”

“They took me in after my parents died—“

“After they arranged your parents’ deaths,” Bruce interjects.

Dick doesn't argue. He’s suspected it for a long time. He thinks it used to make him angry, but those memories are difficult to hold onto. He was hollowed out and fed with so many lies and truths that he eventually stopped bothering trying to tell them apart. It was around that time he started feeling only numbness at the thought of his parents.

“They took me in,” repeats Dick, the same thing the Owls told him daily, the same words he would repeat to himself as he tried to fall asleep. “They _made_  me into someone, gave me a purpose. Nobody else would have done that.”

“That’s not true,” Bruce says, more gently, and it nudges Dick back to himself.

Dick knows that the Court of Owls never cared about him. They only saw him as a tool of death and fear. They lied to him about his parents and their vision of protecting the city. He never helped anyone as their Talon, except them.

He knows all of that. But then why can’t he stop questioning it? Why does part of him still want to put on his uniform and return to them?

His head hurts. 

It’s too cold in the cave, and he can’t answer more questions. He needs time to think. Without asking for permission, he turns around and leaves. Bruce doesn’t try to stop him.

As he reaches the stairs, he glances back quickly. Bruce is standing in front of the equipment table again, holding one of the Talon blades. Not inspecting it, not studying it. Just holding it, like it is heavy in his hands.

 

* * *

 

Cass waits at the top of the stairs, listening to the rapid footsteps grow louder. She was worried when Bruce said he wanted to talk to the Talon alone. Bruce is trying to hide it, but he’s hurting, and when he’s hurting he makes mistakes with other people. Dick is also hurting, even worse, and Cass doesn’t know him well enough to know how he might react.

“How was it?” she asks Dick as he comes into view. His hawk-yellow eyes are lost and distant, and his face looks somehow greyer. She winces sympathetically. “Want to go for a walk?” she offers. “Outside?”

“He’s forbidden me to leave the house,” he says flatly.

“I’m… supervising. It will be fine. Let’s go.” He’s too preoccupied by his thoughts to argue, and silently follows her through the house and out into the gardens.

When they step out into the sun, Cass has a split second of panic, suddenly remembering those movies she watched with Tim about undead people very similar to Dick, except with fangs, that melted in the sun’s rays. Fortunately, the sunlight doesn’t seem to cause Dick any pain. He tilts his face up towards the sun, holding out his hand to catch the warmth of its rays.

“I can’t feel it at all anymore,” he remarks, looking at the sunlight splashed against his palm.

“You will again. One day.”

They walk in silence for awhile. Damian’s dog joins them, trotting alongside carrying a stick in his mouth. Cass throws it for him but he gets distracted by a squirrel, chasing it off into the woods that surround the property. Where Dick’s eyes keep darting to, searchingly, as if looking for an escape route. A way out.

Cass stops in front of him, crossing her arms and frowning. “Something is wrong.”

“I can’t stop thinking that this was a mistake,” he admits. “I’ve betrayed the Court. I should go back and beg for forgiveness, maybe they’ll—“

“They will kill you.”

“I know. But…” 

“I know.” It’s not easy to break away. She’s worked so hard at fraying her connection to her father. The pull that made her sneak off to visit him in prison all those times, even though she knew she didn’t owe him anything. Not her time, and definitely not her love. But it’s not easy to remember that, sometimes.

“I’m worried these thoughts won’t go away, and eventually I’ll— I’ll cave,” Dick says grimly. His hands twitch towards his chest, as they do every so often, checking for weapons that are no longer strapped there. He hides it by crossing his arms. “My last orders were to kill Damian and now every time I see him… I imagine doing it.”

Cass fixes him with a determined look. “I won’t let you hurt my little brother. Not again. If you try… I will stop you. I promise.”

Cass trusts Dick. She knows that he wants to do the right thing, but wants and actions can be very different for someone whose mind has been so manipulated for so long. She decided a while back that she would look after Damian—somebody in this family has to. His safety is her responsibility.

“You know, somehow I believe you,” Dick says wryly, and almost, _almost_  smiles. “What’s your story? If I can ask.”

She tells him about her training, about her “father” and what he intended for her. About the man she killed and her decision to walk away from it all, just like Dick did. She tries very hard to find the right words to describe how she can understand people in silence, how much she can know just from the way someone _blinks_ , but she thinks she falls short, as always. The reason, she’s starting to suspect, might not be from her inexperience with words, but that there are no words to explain it.

“You really meant it, when you said we were the same,” he says seriously, after she’s finished, and she nods.

“I also meant it… about protecting Damian. Very much.”

This time he does smile. Fleeting, but there. “I know. I’m holding you to that.”

 

* * *

 

The rest of the family is off dealing with an emergency, and Damian is brooding. 

They all ran out in the middle of dinner, barely even bothering to explain the trouble to him beyond it being a bomb threat. He knows how to disarm many types of bombs. But apparently they don’t _need_  his help. 

It’s not fair. Sure, he disobeyed orders and ended up ruining a stakeout the one time his father let him patrol with them, but his father only gave him _one_ _chance_  before benching him. Surely he gave Tim more than one chance when _he_  started, disaster that he is. And now, thanks to this accursed cast, Damian won’t be able to redeem himself in the field for weeks.

He sits by a window in the library, frowning at the Bat symbol in the sky, and doesn’t go so far as to hope the bombs explode. He’s not that petty. He imagines it for a moment, but doesn’t _hope_  for it.

Before, it was only Titus that followed Damian around the house, but nowadays he has another shadow. The dog is napping at his feet while the former Talon is slowly spinning a large globe on the nearby desk. Dick traces his fingers over the countries gently, almost wistfully, lost in thoughts he won’t share.

“Planning a trip?” Damian asks loudly.

Dick’s head shoots up, he pulls his hand away from the globe like he’s been shocked. “No.”

“Have you ever even been outside of Gotham?”

“Damian, I grew up in the circus. We traveled all over.”

“I see,” Damian says. Then, “Where?”

Dick doesn’t answer. He thinks for a long time, staring at the globe as if searching for something, but he doesn’t speak and doesn’t touch it again. Eventually he sighs and leaves the globe to wander back and forth along the bookcases, his movements as restless as Damian feels.

Eventually, Dick pulls an atlas of Europe off the shelf and flips through it while sitting on the edge of the desk. He looks strange, wearing a sweater and jeans, with his grey skin and yellow eyes. Like an alien they’ve dressed up in human clothing. Damian wonders what he looked like before, when he was alive.

The door to the library opens. Alfred, checking up on them under the guise of finding Titus to let him outside. Damian is wise to the old man’s tricks.

“You should get ready for bed soon, Master Damian.” Alfred clips the leash on Titus and leads him towards the door. “Your father wants to talk to you about your studies tomorrow morning. He will meet you in his study after breakfast.”

“Fine,” Damian replies flatly.

After the door closes again, Dick finally speaks. The book is closed on his lap. “You’re lucky to have a family that cares about you so much.”

Damian slumps moodily in his armchair, as much as he can with the awkward cast on his leg, lounging with his head hanging over the armrest. He lets out an unimpressed ' _tt'_. “I have a father that doesn’t want me, a usurper I’m supposed to pretend is my brother, and the butler.”

“What about Cassandra?”

Damian tilts his head in acquiescence. “I suppose she is bearable, most of the time.”

“It’s just…” Several emotions flicker across Dick’s face—for a trained assassin, he’s terrible at hiding them. He struggles for words, and can’t seem to find the ones he wants. “You’re really lucky, to not be alone,” he ends up settling with.

“Well, you’re not alone now, either,” Damian points out.

“I know, but, it’s not the same. They’re your _family_. I’m not a part of that. I’m just a stranger, that none of you can trust. For good reason.” 

They are both very aware of the reason he is speaking of—just a few feet away is the scene of their battle a few nights prior. Alfred brought in a rug from one of the spare rooms to hide the stains and knife gouges in the parquet floor, until he can get it refinished. 

“They don’t trust me either,” says Damian, narrowing his eyes at the glowing symbol in the sky outside.

“I’ve only been here three days—”

“I’ve only been here for a month,” Damian counters. “I met my father for the first time about a year ago. Before that, I was raised by my mother.”

“Oh.” Dick can’t hide his curiosity. “She was the one who trained you to kill?”

“She supervised my education,” says Damian. Dick continues to look at him questioningly, and Damian realizes something—he straightens up in his chair, indignant. “Did you not know? Did the Owls not tell you?” he demands. Dick merely frowns in confusion. “My mother is an al Ghul. I am heir to the League of Assassins.”

“No, they didn’t say anything, in the briefing. I was sent to fight Damian _Wayne_ , not…” 

“I suppose they don’t know,” reasons Damian. If they did, surely they would have sent even more Talons.

“Or thought it didn’t matter,” Dick adds.

“What’s _that_  supposed to mean?”

“Damian, even as a trained assassin, you’re just a kid,” he explains patiently. “You didn’t stand a chance against two of us.”

Damian scowls, affronted. They’ll need to have a rematch when his leg is healed.

“It’s interesting, if you think about it,” Damian remarks, crossing his arms and leaning back thoughtfully. “Our upbringings were similar, but also quite different. I was raised to be a ruler. You, a servant.”

“I’m not their _servant_ , I’m—” Dick stops, biting his lip, and tries again, “I was…”

“You were what, exactly?” Damian prods.

Dick lowers his head, and his eyes fall into shadow. For a moment his face looks sharper, harsher, in a way which reminds Damian that, very recently, this man tried to kill him. When he speaks, he sounds like a different person than he was a minute ago. “They said that I was their hand of justice. That I would help them root out the evil, the corruption, and make a better Gotham. A better world, for us to rule.”

Damian stills. The words, the quiet conviction in them, is unsettlingly familiar to him. He was supposed to help build a better world, once. He can almost feel his mother’s hand atop his head, feel the expectant weight of his grandfather’s gaze. He wants to shudder at the sensation.

He excuses himself shortly to get ready for bed, relieved to leave this conversation behind. It’s the first time he goes to bed on time without requiring coercion. Alfred is astounded and even feels his forehead to make sure he’s not ill.

 

* * *

 

Dick doesn’t feel so strange for not sleeping, once it becomes clear that his bed isn’t the only one in the house getting little use. Damian only sleeps because he has an enforced bedtime. Cassandra gets to bed after dawn on a good day. Dick still hasn’t found out if Alfred sleeps. Bruce spends most of his time in the cave, so perhaps he rests there. And Tim is the most erratic of the bunch. He’ll seemingly go days without sleeping, until exhaustion overwhelms him and he falls asleep anywhere—at the breakfast table, sprawled on the staircase, the nearest spare bedroom. 

This is one of the nights Tim doesn’t sleep. He has taken over Bruce’s study, the desk a mess of scattered case files and tangled wires—he has at least three laptops running, maybe more. Dick only takes a passing glance.

After a few endless nights of sitting in his room, Dick got tired of staring at the same walls and started venturing out into the rest of the house. The aimless wandering eventually became patrolling—after all, the Court may decide to send more Talons after Damian—and now he’s established an optimal patrol route through the house, one that takes him past the study frequently.

“Why do you keep walking by here?” Tim calls out, looking up from the glow of the computer screens as Dick makes his fourth pass. “Is Cass making you check up on me?”

“No. I’m just keeping watch.”

“For what?”

“Talons.”

Tim nods. “That’s fair. But take a break from that for a sec. I’ve got something for you.”

Dick hesitates in the doorway for a moment before entering the study. He wasn’t expecting this. Ever since he got here, he has felt like Tim has been avoiding him. He isn’t offended, it’s an understandable response, but he can tell it’s not because Tim is _scared_  of him. It’s… something else.

Rummaging through the piles of folders, Tim finds the one he’s looking for and pulls out a photograph that he hands over. For a moment Dick doesn’t recognize any of the faces in the picture, and, once he realizes what he’s looking at, that lapse horrifies him. 

What has he _become_? For a moment he didn’t recognize his parents smiling in their costumes. He didn’t recognize himself.

“It was taken the day of your family’s last performance. The little kid is me,” Tim points out. He tilts his head curiously. “Do you… remember?”

“No.” Dick remembers several things from that distant day, very vividly, but Tim is not one of them. He’s unable to tear his eyes away from the photo. “I don’t have any pictures of them,” he says quietly. The last time he saw his parents they were lying broken on the ground.

“I figured. You can keep that one,” Tim offers, kind but unnecessary. Dick wouldn’t have been able to bring himself to give it back anyway. Turning back to his case files, Tim says, conversationally, “Haly’s Circus will be in town in a few months. We can go visit, if you want.”

Anger kindles within Dick at the name. “Haly is the one who handed me over to the Owls.”

“Yeah, you told us. I’ve been looking into the connection. That’s why I was thinking we could pay him a visit, together, and make sure what happened to you never happens again.”

Dick looks up sharply. “By shutting down the circus?”

“What? No— I was thinking a proper investigation, and some new management,” Tim says. “Have you… Have you ever thought about rejoining the circus, now that you’re free from the Court?”

“I won’t be free until every member is dead.”

“Or in jail,” Tim suggests, worry flickering across his face as he seems to debate whether he should have. He hunches more closely over the desk, busying himself with some diagrams. “Maybe one day, then.”

“Maybe.” Dick leaves, still looking at the picture, and wonders who the young boy in the acrobat costume would have agreed with, himself or Tim.

 

* * *

 

Meditation was never a part of Dick’s training with the Owls. They devoted his time to mastering more applicable skills, like bypassing security systems and methods of torture. But Cassandra has since impressed on him the importance of the practice to organize one’s thoughts and foster a sense of peace and balance.

He hasn’t seen much of a result yet, unable to completely clear his mind, his muddled emotions far from peaceful, but he still joins her in the daily session she’s kind enough to invite him to. Cass has been through much, like him, and has managed to emerge from it as a well-balanced person, unlike him. She must know what she’s talking about.

Damian requires a more coercive method of persuasion to join, one that seems to include a lot of pinching and being dragged along by the arm and, worst of all, Cass’s disappointed frown. He always relents in the end, always unhappily, but never lasts more than ten minutes. The boy has so much difficulty focusing that Dick feels like he’s on the verge of discovering inner peace in comparison.

“Neither of your techniques is correct,” Damian, in a particularly bad mood one afternoon, remarks in annoyance.

“Shh…” Cass shushes him gently.

He’s quiet for a moment. And then they can hear him fidgeting again. “You should listen to me. I’ve trained with—“

“Shh,” she repeats, more firmly.

Damian scoffs, picks up his crutches, and stands. “This is a waste of my time,” he says, stomping out of the room as loudly as possible.

Dick can’t resist the urge to crack open an eyelid. Cass’s eyes are still shut, her face calm and focus unbroken. “Where is he going?” Dick asks.

“Cave.”

“He’s very…” Dick can’t decide how he wants to finish that sentence.

She sighs and opens her eyes, unfolding her legs and stretching them out in front of her. “Yes. He is.”

“Why?” Damian is still a mystery to him. He knows the boy is Bruce’s son, and was raised by his mother to be an assassin until not too long ago, but not much else.

“Bruce,” Cass says simply. “Damian expected Bruce to be… different. Bruce _wants_  Damian to be different. Damian wants to be what Bruce wants. But he doesn’t know how.” She wraps her arms around her knees and rests her chin atop them, her gaze regretful and faraway as she chooses the right words. “Damian thinks nobody understands. I do. I’ve tried to tell him, but he doesn’t trust. He won’t open up to me.”

Dick can’t think of anything convincing to tell her. Damian will come around eventually, he just needs more time—it all rings false and hollow. They’re the same sort of things everyone has been telling him.

“He might open up to you,” she adds to his surprise, looking at him imploringly.

“Why?”

“He argued with Bruce that we should help you… because if he could change, so can you. I think the reason is… the opposite. He hopes if you change, it proves he can, too.”

“But why me? You’ve already been through this. You’re the proof.”

She shakes her head. “Not enough. He needs to _see_  it.”

Though he’s not entirely convinced, he dips his head in a reluctant nod. “I’ll try not to disappoint,” he mutters, unhappily bearing the burden of another’s redemption that’s been forced onto him alongside his own. It’s not fair, it’s too much, and yet he finds himself shouldering it with a renewed resolve. 

He doesn’t care what happens to himself, but he cares what happens to Damian, even if he doesn’t _l_ _ike_  him very much. He did save the boy’s life, after all.

“When he talks to you… please be kind. He’s rude, a lot, but…” Cass shrugs sadly. “He doesn’t… _know_  kind. He needs to see more of it, too.”

 

* * *

 

Damian has never shown the drawings to anyone before. He keeps them in a sketchbook hidden underneath a floorboard in his closet, even though the only person who enters his room without his permission is Alfred, to tidy up, and the man is not a snoop, an honourable quality that Damian respects him for. 

Still, one must be careful. Tim _acts_  like he’s too mature to reciprocate Damian’s acts of sabotage, but Damian doesn’t buy it. This kind of blackmail material in Tim’s hands could be ruinous. Particularly since many of the pictures are of Tim himself, dying very graphically in a multitude of bloody ways. If Bruce sees any of them, Damian can bid farewell to any hope of ever being allowed to fight crime at his side.

So, when he shows the drawings to Grayson, it’s not a decision he’s made lightly. He doesn't believe the Talon will tell anyone—he’s not exactly a talkative sort, and while he doesn’t have any particular loyalty towards Damian, he doesn’t have any towards the others, either. This method of emotional venting has helped Damian suppress the urges his father finds so offensive, so surely it will help the Talon as well. He _will_  prove to his father that he was right.

Dick picks up a sketch of Two-Face screaming as his head is cleaved in half, examining it with a pinched expression. “You drew these?”

“Of course,” says Damian, slightly disappointed that Dick barely glances at the picture of the Scarecrow burning to death. It’s one of his best. “Don’t tell anyone. Father has tried sending me to doctors before. He thinks I have rage issues. If he knew about this he would no doubt bring up the topic again.” He gathers the pages together and slips them back into the book, where they belong. It’s getting to be a thick stack. Perhaps he should incinerate some soon. “It helps, putting them on paper. Somewhat. You should try.” He slides blank paper and a few coloured pencils across the table to Dick, keeping the majority of colours for himself, of course. 

“I’m not a good artist,” Dick deflects, eyeing the art supplies with apprehension, but Damian frowns at him stubbornly until he understands that it wasn't a suggestion and picks up a pencil.

Damian finishes his initial sketch of the Joker dissolving in a vat of acid, an image that’s been in his head all morning, when he’s interrupted by Dick’s tentative voice.

“Is that… what you want to do?” Dick asks him. His head is tilted to see the picture, and Damian instinctively covers the unfinished work with his arm.

“I don’t _want_  to,” Damian replies, continuing to sketch. And it’s the truth. He doesn’t want to deal with his father’s disappointment. He wants to be someone his father can be proud of. “I just think about it, and then I put them on paper so I don’t have to anymore.” He glances up at Dick inquisitively. “What do you think about?”

“I think about following my orders, and returning to the Court with news of a successful mission that would make up for my past failures. I would become their most trusted Talon. They would never put me in stasis again.” Dick’s voice fades at the end, like he’s telling a story even he can’t believe in.

“That would mean killing people,” Damian points out, picking up a red pencil.

Dick stares down at the blank paper, his yellow eyes haunted. “That’s the part I try not to think about.”

“So you don’t think about killing me?” Damian asks casually. Dick goes rigid in distress, his eyes wide and guilt-stricken. Damian raises a knowing eyebrow at his reaction. “It is all right if you do. You were brainwashed to follow their orders, after all.”

Dick protests. “I won’t—“

“You can draw it—it may help. I won’t be offended.”

“I _can’t_.”

“Fine,” Damian says coolly. This was a foolish idea. He waves dismissively towards the door. “Then go. But don’t you dare tell anyone about this, especially my father, or it will be the last thing you do.”

“I didn’t…” Dick begins to explain, then stops. Changes tactics. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Can I use the yellow?”

Damian passes it over, and watches as Dick slowly fills the paper. He wasn’t wrong about being a terrible artist. He draws black and grey wings, round yellow eyes, beaks and claws dripping with red. After one sheet of paper is filled with owls he starts on another, and another. When he’s done, he looks at the pages of owls spread out across the table in front of him, then up at Damian, who nods approvingly. It’s a start.

 

* * *

 

Weeks pass slowly, the quiet routine repeating itself until the peculiar, uncomfortable circumstances he has found himself in—a disgraced Talon staying as a combination of guest and prisoner in his enemy’s home—become something normal and familiar. Nothing is demanded of him, other than answers to Bruce’s questions and the constant, silent warning to behave.

Cassandra remains as kind and patient as time goes on, Alfred just as polite and eerily omniscient. Bruce and Tim just as busy. Damian just as prickly and yet somehow becoming more and more attached to Dick, spending more time with him even while outwardly _disliking_  him. He’s a strange boy. Sharing personal truths only to abruptly retreat back into his shell, fiercely protective. Like he’s trying to open up, be friends, but has no idea how to go about it. Dick can’t help, being very much out of practice in that department.

But he keeps Cassandra’s request in mind and is kind to the boy, patient and accommodating, even as he sometimes grits his teeth against the annoyance of being treated like a dog being trained to do tricks. Damian never wastes an opportunity to smugly point out little accomplishments to his father: yesterday he and Dick helped Alfred in the kitchen and none of the knives went missing, today Dick went for a walk in the garden alone and came back—nothing happened, the world kept spinning. Whatever contest is going on between father and son, Dick doesn’t appreciate being a part of it.

He thinks about leaving, just walking away. The security measures surely hidden on the borders of the property probably aren’t anything he can’t handle. He could do it… but then what? There’s nowhere for him to go— _except where he belongs_ , reminds that unceasing, unwelcome part of himself. He doesn’t trust himself to not walk straight back to the Court.

Here in this strange, confusing house, among its strange, confusing inhabitants, he feels something like peace for the first time in his known memory. And it’s absolutely stifling.

 

* * *

 

Damian shrugs when Dick asks him about the violin. 

Dick has heard the music before, from behind Damian’s closed door. But today the door is open, and as he walked by he stopped to watch in curiosity. The way the boy’s fingers move nimbly on the strings, the discipline and care, is impressive.

“Mother made me learn,” says Damian, patiently tuning a string. “She ensured my education covered a variety of subjects.”

“My training was a lot more focused,” Dick says. The Court of Owls never even let him see a book that wasn’t about poisons, or computer systems, or their propagandistic view of the history of Gotham. Though there was that one volume that was literally about owls, all the types of owls and their behaviours, that he actually liked to read when he was young.

“If there’s a topic you’re interested in, I’m sure I could teach you.”

“I’ll let you know,” Dick promises, and leaves him to his practicing.

The next evening, he finds himself at Damian’s bedroom door once again. This time it is only slightly ajar. He knocks cautiously, and is called inside.

“I heard you were being punished,” says Dick, closing the door behind him. Damian is lying on his back on his bed, his hands laced together under his resting head. “They said you tried to stab Tim in the eye with your fork.”

Damian makes an amused noise in his throat—the closest he gets to laughing. “If I actually tried, he would have one less eye right now.”

“So, what’s your punishment?”

“I have to stay in my room. Until I apologize.”

“Oh.” Dick looks at the books, the computer, the comfortable bed, and all of the other luxuries in the spacious bedroom. “That doesn’t seem too bad.”

“It’s really not,” agrees Damian, staring unconcernedly at the ceiling. “It’s no more tedious than how I already spend my time in this house.” He tilts his head to look at Dick. “What do you want?”

Dick gestures at the chess set on the other side of the room. “Will you teach me something?”

Once Dick gets the basic rules of the game down, and loses his first match in about five moves, he starts reminiscing to Damian about his own childhood punishments in the Court of Owls. 

“A few times they got the acting Talon to come put me in my place, but they had to stop after he tried to kill me. He wanted to get rid of his future competition,” Dick explains, and Damian nods in perfect understanding. “The other instructors were pretty rough, but lightweights compared to him. Eventually I grew enough that they couldn’t push me around anymore, and they had to get more creative.”

“Mother would never strike me outside of combat,” says Damian as he deftly eliminates one of Dick’s knights from the board. “My tutors did, but they were scared to go too far. Mother would kill them if they actually harmed me.” He smirks vindictively at some memory, and adds: “They were all killed anyway, but she made it far worse for some of them.”

“What did your mom do, then, when you did something wrong?”

“She… She never really had to do anything. I always knew when I’d disappointed her.” Damian frowns, distracted. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Dick doesn’t expect him to elaborate. But then he speaks again, his voice quieter, “I knew just by the way she looked at me.”

They play in silence for a while. Dick doesn’t like it. He spent too many years keeping his mouth shut.

“One time I tried running away, and they chained me up by my ankle for a while,” he recalls. That really sucked, because it forced him to stay on the ground, even during training. No trapeze equipment, no flips. “The worst, though, was when they would lock me up alone for days, sometimes a week.” In a hard, windowless cell, not a nice bedroom in a mansion.

Damian is a surprisingly good listener, when it comes to this sort of topic. And Dick finds that he wants to talk. It was hard, before, to speak about his time with the Court of Owls. He was worried about these heroes judging him, or worried about dredging up old pain. But Damian seems to relate to his harsh years of training, and Dick realizes these memories don’t hurt so much when they’re shared with someone who understands.

The more Dick talks, the more the words flow. Damian responds with his own stories, though he seems to view it as some kind of competition and often tries to one-up Dick’s remembered experiences with some more challenging or impressive. It becomes like another game, layered with their chess matches.

They play chess regularly over the next few days. Damian isn’t quite the teacher he thinks he is, or he’s just too competitive to share strategy advice, because Dick can’t seem to win a single game. He doesn’t mind, too much. It’s just nice to have an activity to pass the time. 

One afternoon, Cass pokes her head inside the room and watches them play for a minute. “You don’t like this game,” she tells Dick. She’s entirely correct. “Wait.” She leaves for a while and returns with her arms full of a stack of colourful boxes. 

Dick remembers board games. His family used to have some in their trailer to play on travel days. It’s a good memory. He used to try to forget those, let them slip away—it hurt less, to forget—but now he holds onto it tightly.

Cass gets them to set up Clue and then leaves and returns again, this time with a huge bowl of popcorn and dragging a reluctant Tim by the arm.

It’s a bit of a challenge to get started. Damian insists on shuffling the cards, and Tim doesn’t trust him not to cheat. Cass reads the rules aloud to them and it takes her a while, but they all listen patiently. Tim eats most of the popcorn while listening, to Cass’s indignation, and she makes him go get them another bowl. But, eventually, they get organized into some semblance of an amicable game, even if Damian kicks Tim in the shins under the table a few times.

There is a significant lull while Tim excessively strategizes his turn. As they wait, Dick turns to Damian and picks up where their own game left off—it’s his turn to ask. “Were you ever dropped off in the wilderness with no supplies, and had to survive and make your way back?”

“Frequently,” Damian replies. “Often there were assassins hunting me, and I had to defeat them to steal their transportation.”

“It only happened to me a couple times. I think they were worried about giving me chances to run away.” He did try, once. The acting Talon was overseeing that exercise and stopped him. Violently. “It was nice, though, being outside.”

“Happened to me, too,” Cass joins in.

Tim, finally finishing his turn, adds, “I did something like that as a training exercise with Bruce.”

Damian scowls at him. “It’s not the _same_ , Drake.”

“Did they ever make you just stand, not moving… until you couldn’t?” Cass asks. “Until youpassed out?”

Dick groans at the memory. “Oh, definitely. The worst part was how boring it was.”

“I had several tutors who were fond of that exercise,” Damian says as he rolls the die for his turn. “They usually made me stand on one leg, however.”

Tim opens his mouth to say something, then closes it, his brow furrowed in concern. Damian takes his distraction as an opportunity to peek at his cards.

“Were you ever made to kill your teachers after you surpassed them?” asks Damian nonchalantly. Cass shakes her head as Dick nods.

“Guys, you’re messing with me, right?” Tim asks with a weak smile, looking at each of them in turn. They look back at him calmly. Cass eats a handful of popcorn without breaking eye contact with him, completely unperturbed. His face is pale. “Please tell me you are.”

 

* * *

 

Dick can’t pinpoint the moment things changed with Bruce. The shift happened at a glacial pace. The man is slow to lower his guard, and he still doesn’t completely trust Dick, maybe he never will. But eventually, their time spent talking about the Owls in the cave becomes less like interrogations and more like working together to bring down the enemy. Eventually, Dick starts to look forward to it. He’s a part of their team, in a small way. He is glad he can do at least this.

Part of him worries about what will happen when he has no new information to give, when he can’t add any more value to their strategizing. As the Court’s Talon, he only knows so much about their operations. What will happen when Bruce has no more need of him?

But this isn’t the Court of Owls. These people won’t just get rid of him, won’t toss him in storage when he’s no longer useful. He tries to remember that.

Bruce always guides their meetings with a strong hand, and doesn’t ever let their discussion deviate from the mission. He still skirts around the topic of Dick’s own training and time as a Talon except as it directly relates to taking down the Court of Owls, and only in the most detached manner.

So it’s a surprise when Bruce shuts off the holographic map of Gotham they’ve been consulting and turns to face Dick directly. For a split second it feels like a confrontation—Dick tenses instinctively, fights the urge to reach for knives he no longer owns.

Bruce’s face is unguarded, unmasked—and not just of his cowl. That other mask he wears, both in and out of costume, has slipped away. Dick has seen glimpses of this before, when Bruce is around the others, when he looks at one of his kids proudly or is chastised by Alfred. Dick has seen _Bruce_ , but, until now, he has only ever spoken to Batman.

“Dick,” Bruce says. “The night your parents died…” And then he stops, and waits. He’s waiting for permission, Dick realizes.

Dick nods. “Yes. I heard you were there, at the circus. You saw it happen.”

He thought Bruce was avoiding this conversation. But now he thinks he was wrong—Bruce has been _planning_  it. His words are carefully chosen, the time and place decided in advance, every outcome doubtlessly considered.

“I didn’t just watch. I was going to…” Bruce falters, despite his preparations. He’s _nervous_. “I told the police, after it happened, that you could stay with me. I wanted to keep you safe, at least until your parents’ killer was found. But I wasn’t fast enough. I turned around and you were already gone.”

“I ran away,” admits Dick. It was a stupid, childish thing to do. “I just… wanted to be alone, and then…”

He supposes he got what he wanted—he certainly was alone after that.

“A circus yard full of detectives, and you disappeared without a trace.” Bruce’s eyes are weary and haunted—haunted by _him_. “I searched for you for a long time. Long enough, I suspect, that the Court must have gotten uncomfortable. The jaw fragments that turned up matching your dental records, that was them. They planted the evidence so I would stop looking, and it worked.” 

Dick opens his mouth to protest, to tell Bruce it’s not his fault. But Bruce continues before he can say anything.

“I’ve spent a lot of time over the years thinking about you, about your case. I’ve always felt like there was more I should have done. I should have found you.” Bruce meets Dick’s stunned gaze unflinchingly. “I’m sorry.”

Dick stares at him, his voice choked in his throat.

The truth is, Dick has spent a lot of time thinking about Batman, as well. The Court always told him throughout his training that he would be the Talon to one day eliminate the Batman. It turns out they were wrong. He will be the Talon who helps Batman eliminate the Court of Owls.

“What would have happened, if I had gone with you?” Dick asks when he finds his voice again. It’s a foolish question, a fantasy. The past can’t be changed. Still, he wonders.

For a moment the other man says nothing, and Dick wishes he could take it back, but then Bruce clears his throat and indulges the notion, completely serious. “You would have lived here. I’m not exactly the most attentive guardian, or so I’ve been told, but I would have tried my best. You wouldn’t have been alone. And I would have found the man who murdered your family and brought him to justice, so that you wouldn’t spend your life asking the same questions I did.”

The fantasy bursts like a bubble. “He’s dead,” Dick says hollowly. His turn for a confession. “The man that killed my parents. His name was Zucco. They said he was the one, and they caught him for me. They had him tied up in a chair and gave me a knife.”

It was a very long time ago, but Dick remembers every moment of his first kill. The first nervous stab, into the man’s belly, quick and tentative. The warm blood making the knife slippery in his hand. When he began crying, unable to continue, the Grandmaster held his wrist and guided the blade for him. He heard those muffled screams in his sleep for years after that.

“It didn’t… I didn’t like it. But I did it,” Dick says. He steels himself and looks up at Bruce, expecting to find hostility, renewed distrust. 

Bruce just looks sad. “It’s okay, Dick,” he says calmly. His shoulders seem heavier, with an added weight. The same weight of guilt that Dick bears. “It’s not your fault.”

They are, both of them, desperate to be forgiven, but unable to accept forgiveness.

Bruce turns the holo map on again. Too much emotion in one go, perhaps, Dick thinks with wry amusement. Back to work. But before Bruce can pull them back to the mission, Dick speaks up.

“I think…” he says slowly, “if I had been here instead, with you, I wouldn’t have let you track Zucco down without me. We would have caught him together, and then the Court. And it would have been different.”

“Yes,” Bruce agrees. “Everything would have been different.”

 

* * *

 

“I owe you both an apology,” Bruce tells Cass and Damian. They glance at each other with raised eyebrows—neither of them expected this when he summoned them down to the cave. “You were right, about the Talon. About Dick. I think we are meant to help him.”

If it were just Cass here, that would be the end of it. She would accept the apology, give him a quick kiss on the cheek, and head back upstairs to have afternoon tea with Alfred.

But it’s not enough for Damian. His face is bright with victory, and, pushing his luck, he says eagerly, “Father, I want to talk about when I can join you on patrol.”

Bruce frowns at him. “Damian, you’re still in a cast.”

“For only two more days! Pennyworth said so. He promised.” Damian shoots a glare at the offending piece of plaster on his leg. “After it’s removed—“

Bruce interrupts him sternly. “After it’s removed, you will need at least a month of physical therapy to strengthen that leg before I even entertain the idea of you patrolling Gotham with us.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Damian protests.

“One month.” Bruce’s verdict is firm. “We will discuss it then.”

“We will discuss it now, Father!” Damian’s voice rings off the cave walls, too loud. His hands are clenched into tight fists around the handles of his crutches and he raises his chin challengingly.

Cass can see Bruce’s patience wearing thin—there’s that telltale twitch in his jaw—but he doesn’t rise to the confrontation. His voice is steady and calm when he responds.

“Damian. I’m proud of the judgement you showed with Dick. But you still don’t _l_ _isten_  to me, and I can’t trust you to follow orders in the field unless you start. I won’t allow a repeat of last time.”

Damian doesn’t argue anymore. The mention of that failed mission silences him. He scowls indignantly but he can’t keep his face from flushing in shame at the memory. Cass feels bad for him—sure, it was a bit of a disaster, and sure, it’s hard to deny that it was his fault that building went up in flames… But that was a while ago, right after he came to live with them. He’s grown since then. A little bit.

Cass goes to find Damian later. He’s sitting on the floor of his bedroom, leaning against the dresser, and tossing a dagger to spin in the air. He catches it neatly, over and over.

Cass sits down next to him on the floor. “One month is not long,” she tells him. “Be patient.”

“I’ve been patient.” Damian catches the dagger once more and hurls it across the room with perfect control, despite his anger. It lodges itself in one of the wooden bed posts. “You don’t want me to fight with you. None of you do.”

“I worry about you,” she says truthfully. He’s young and small, and her brother. She would rather he be safe. But she also wants him to be happy. “So does Bruce.”

He leans his chin on his crossed arms. “It won’t be like last time. That was only a mistake.”

“I know.”

“He says I don’t listen to him, but he doesn’t listen to _me_. Not like he listens to you, or…” Damian’s nose wrinkles in distaste at the name he refuses to say.

“When your leg is better, I’ll talk to him. I’ll help you,” says Cass, standing and reaching a hand to help him up. He takes it, for once. “When your leg is better,” she repeats sternly. He pouts and drops her hand like a hot coal as soon as he’s on his feet.

 

* * *

 

When Cassandra asks Dick to spar, he all but leaps at the opportunity. His life before this had been defined by training and fighting, and being without it for so long has been like pacing in a shrinking cage, but it seemed wrong to… indulge. He’s been offered a chance to prove he’s more than an assassin, to show repentance, so he should not practice _violence_. 

To be able to move freely, to do what he was born to do, even if it means having to descend into the chill of the cave, is more than he dared to hope for. He had spotted some acrobatic equipment in the cave before, too, so perhaps, if this goes well, he could ask…

Once they reach the training ring, he begins having second thoughts. 

“You’re sure this is a good idea?” he asks Cass as she limbers up on the other side of the ring.

She quirks an eyebrow. “Scared?”

Dick replies honestly. “Yes.” He is. Of himself, mostly, and the abilities he still hasn’t gotten used to. The agility and the strength… especially the strength, which had surprised him the most in his fight with the other Talon, his mission partner, when he decided to protect Damian. Beheading is one the only surefire ways to kill a reanimated Talon, and it had been like shearing paper.

“Don’t be.” She beams reassuringly and assumes a fighting stance. “Ready?”

He responds with his fist, and misses by a mile.

* * *

 

Cass can tell a lot about a person by how they fight. It’s her favourite way to get to know someone—a physical conversation, a heart-to-heart without words.

She has seen Bruce’s pain and Tim’s strength, and the connection between them, each’s influence on the other. She’s seen Stephanie’s bravado and stubbornness. She’s seen Damian’s insecurities in every strike he makes. But she has never seen anyone like this Talon.

He’s faster and stronger than a regular human, definitely, though not fast enough to fool her, and he carefully controls his strength, out of fear. His Talon abilities are the least interesting thing about him.

He hardly touches the floor. Only in short bursts, to push off for another backflip or spinning kick. And she gets the sense that he wants to do _more_ , to leap even higher and faster, but those flashy moves have been methodically trained out of him. He’s holding back and being held back. He wants to fly.

She watches numerous opportunities to end the fight go by, wanting to let it drag on a bit more, to see if she can maybe coax him away from his fears so he’ll stop holding back, but then she sees the perfect opening for a quick, neat win and can’t resist taking it.

At that moment, Dick is fortunately saved by the sudden shrieking of an emergency alarm that cuts their match short and undecided.

 

* * *

 

They hurry to gear up, inspecting and loading the handheld freeze rays with a practiced balance of speed and care. Precious time is ticking away, but this isn’t an enemy they can go up against unprepared. 

“It’s a trap,” insists Dick as he stands by with his arms crossed and watches them ready for a battle that he won’t be a part of, the frustration practically coming off him in waves. “No Talon would bother with a kidnapping, there’s no point. Our job is to kill without being seen. They’re trying to lure you out.”

“Clearly,” remarks Bruce, pulling on his cowl.

Tim tosses Bruce a bundle of freeze bombs. “It saves us the trouble of luring _them_  out.”

“I should go with you.” Dick desperately glances from Bruce’s stony face to Cass’s, but she carefully keeps her expression just as calm and unyielding. “I can help you fight them. I’m capable. You know that.”

“I know that you’re still struggling against their control over you.” Bruce’s gruff words are an echo of Cass’s own voiced opinion. Bruce had asked for it, she had given it, and she stands by it. But she is still relieved that she isn’t the one who has to say it to Dick. “You’re not ready to face them. I can’t risk you endangering us or civilians by hesitating at the critical moment.”

Dick scowls as he watches them finish gearing up. “You don’t understand what you’re getting into.”

“We can handle it,” says Cass, gently but firmly. His yellow eyes flicker aside—he doesn’t believe her.

“Stay here,” orders Bruce over his shoulder, turning towards the Batmobile with a sweep of his long cape. “Keep Damian and Alfred safe while we’re gone.”

Dick watches him go, startled into speechlessness as he understands the amount of trust implied in that order. “I will,” he manages to say, but his voice is drowned out by the Batmobile’s engine roaring to life. Cass hops on her bike and waves him goodbye as she speeds off after Bruce and Tim.

 

* * *

 

Damian has, grudgingly, been on his best behaviour today, finishing his studies early without too much backtalk and eating all his vegetables, so he manages to convince Alfred to let him stay up late and wait in the cave until the others come home, as long as he heads up to bed right after.

The Talon waits with him—ever since he saved Damian’s life it’s as though he’s felt the need to hover around him like a babysitter, something Damian most definitely does not want or need. What he needs is this cast sawed off his leg so that he can leave the cave and go exact revenge on the Court of _Cowards_ for sending assassins after him. 

“Damian, are you sure that’s a good idea?” asks Dick. Damian ignores him and continues with his chin-ups, determined to beat his record despite the awkward weight of the cast on his dangling leg. Grayson keeps getting more talkative by the day. Damian misses when he was withdrawn and quiet and didn’t ask impertinent questions. “If you fall, you’ll damage your leg worse.”

“That won’t happen,” Damian huffs as he strains to pull himself above the bar again, his arms beginning to shake. “And I don’t require your concern.”

“Your father told me to keep an eye on you.”

“A pointless task meant to keep you out of the way,” says Damian. He’s been given enough busywork around here to recognize it when he sees it. “He’s never going to trust either of us enough to let us do anything important, like patrolling his precious city.”

“Why do you want to go out there so badly?”

“Why do _you_?” Damian shoots back.

“I worked for the Court,” says Dick. His voice still catches sometimes, almost forgetting that it needs to be the past tense. “I have a responsibility to stop them. You don’t.”

“I’m the son of Batman. I have plenty of responsibilities.”

Dick is quiet for a moment. The only sounds in the cave are Damian’s grunts and the distant whispers of the roosting bats. Then he asks, “But why bother training, if he won’t let you fight crime?”

“So that I’ll be ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“Isn’t there someone else in this house you can bother?” Damian snaps. Dick doesn't reply. When Damian lowers himself to the ground and turns the man is long gone, vanished silently into the shadows.

Grayson is right, why bother? It’s pointless. Even if Damian can miraculously be in perfect shape when the cast comes off with no physical therapy required, even if he demonstrates only perfect behaviour, even if Cass speaks on his behalf, he is certain his father will _still_ come up with some other excuse why he shouldn’t join them on patrol yet.

Damian hobbles over to sit in his father’s chair in front of the computers, and sullenly spins in it a few times. He pulls up the camera feed from his father’s mask onto the screen and watches the mission unfold, studying closely. It’s all he can do. For now.

 

* * *

 

They return to the cave late and successful, but not without cost. All three of them are bruised and bleeding. Tim is the worst off—feverish and flitting in and out of consciousness after being nicked with a poison-tipped dart. One of the antidote solutions in the Batmobile worked to neutralize it but he needs to be monitored until he wakes up.

Bruce lifts him out of the car and carries him to the medical bed where Alfred is waiting with the diagnostic scanners. Both men wear expressions of grim concern as they tend to the ailing boy. Cass spots Dick, lingering in the shadows near the cave wall and staring. He’s not used to seeing Bruce show such emotion.

Damian backs away from the scene of his father and Alfred fussing over Tim, lip curling in distaste. He edges closer to where Cass is sitting on a cot, bandaging up a gash on her forearm, and his brow furrows at the sight of the wound. “You’re hurt?” he asks, with an almost imperceptible waver to his voice.

Cass tilts her head in astonishment. “You’re worried.” She’s almost convinced that he’s hurt as well—he must have hit his head to be acting this way.

“Don’t be absurd. As if I care,” he scoffs. “I was simply… curious, as to how you were injured, since you’re such a formidable— I mean, clearly you’re _not_ , since this happened—“ Flustered, he crosses his arms and turns away to hide his brightly flushed face from her. “Pathetic.”

She pats him on the head comfortingly, an amused twinkle in her eyes. “Shh, little brother. I’m fine. Just scratches.” He replies with a ‘ _tt_ ’ and storms over to the stairs under the watchful gaze of Alfred, who reminds him to _head straight to bed, young man_. It’s late, far past his bedtime.

As Cass finishes patching herself up and Tim’s condition becomes stable she turns her thoughts fondly to her own bed waiting for her, only to hear Dick’s loud protests arguing with Bruce’s low voice, echoing from the computer level. She sighs. Sleep will have to wait a little longer.

“I’m not debating this,” Bruce is saying as Cass reaches them. “I stand by what I said before—you’re not ready. Cassandra agrees with me.”

She nods guiltily. “Not _yet_ ,” she amends, trying to soften the blow.

She learned a lot in the spar, and she knows he’s not ready yet. He’s still vulnerable to the Court. He still wants to fight them for the wrong reasons.

Dick crosses his arms and glances up at the med bay, where Tim is lying in his hospital bed. “I just… want to help.”

“You have helped,” Cass insists, and turns to Bruce, imploring him to explain it.

“From the information you gave us,” he tells Dick, ‘we knew which poisons the Court uses and prepared the antidotes ahead of time. Tim will recover, because of you.”

Dick nods once, accepting. Cass watches him walk away, towards the stairs, and she can still see the frustration simmering within him. It’s not _enough_.

 

* * *

 

The Court of Owls sends more Talons out into Gotham each night, redoubling their efforts as they fail and fail again to eliminate the heroes on their tail, and each night Dick’s offer to join the fight against the Court is refused. 

Yesterday, Batman seized an important laboratory belonging to the Court and everyone is pleased at this victory, but Dick worries, and upon nightfall paces the house with increased vigilance. There will be retaliation. He knows it. They all know it.

The sky outside is dark, moonless. Dick glances out a window in the study and doesn’t see any Bat symbol shining. He hopes it stays that way. Bracing himself for the cold, he descends the stairs to the cave to check if Alfred, on monitor duty, has heard any updates from the others.

The old butler has never been anything but calm and collected around Dick. So to see him flustered, almost panicked, has Dick assuming the very worst.

“What’s wrong?” Dick asks, rushing towards him. He sees the answer for himself—the monitors are playing several security videos on repeat. One of the tiles shows Damian tampering with the computers, and another has him speeding out of the cave on a motorbike. 

“Master Damian—he’s gone. He and his father had a… disagreement this evening, regarding his right to patrol Gotham. It seems Master Damian has reached the end of his patience. I’ve _told_  Bruce—” Alfred says, unable to hide his frustration with the man, but stops himself with a deep breath and a grim shake of his head. “Masters Bruce and Tim are undercover tonight, with no radio contact. And with all those Talons roaming about… I’m worried.”

“Where is Cass?” asks Dick.

“Offshore. She stowed away on a trafficker’s ship. I’ve already informed her of the situation—she’ll return as quickly as she can, but it will take some time.”

Dick makes his decision. “I’ll go. I’ll find Damian.”

“Master Bruce has left strict orders that you are not to leave the grounds, sir,” Alfred reminds him, reluctantly.

“Please,” Dick begs. There’s nothing stopping him from just leaving, permission be damned, but he trusts these people, and he really wants them to trust him. 

Alfred hesitates only briefly before nodding gratefully and hurrying to gather him some equipment.

 

* * *

 

Dick misses falling.

Jumping from a building isn’t the same thrill as it was when he was alive and mortal, and the landing could actually kill him. There’s no rush of adrenaline. No slowing of time as his heartbeat pounds in his ears. Now if he misjudges and hits the ground his bones would fuse themselves back together and he would be back on his feet in a less than a minute. He’d barely even feel it.

He isn’t searching long before he runs into trouble. His grappling line snaps as he’s tackled from behind in mid-air, and the unforgiving rooftop rushes up as he and his opponent free fall towards it together. He only has enough time before the impact to twist around and get a glimpse of his opponent—familiar gold-rimmed goggles and dark garb with glinting knives strapped and ready. Another Talon.

There is no pain, as usual, and no sound of cracking bones, which Dick is thankful for because he needs them intact to fend off the other Talon, who seems to have much more experience with his post-resurrection body and doesn’t hesitate a moment before leaping at Dick with a knife in each hand. Dick blocks one with his bracer, but the other sinks into his side and he doesn’t have the chance to pull it out before he has to block two more.

Dick palms one of the bat-shaped throwing stars Alfred gave him. The shape is unfamiliar in his hand but he manages to stab it into the Talon’s eye, shattering the glass of his goggles. He merely grimaces in annoyance and pulls it out.

Angered, the Talon lashes out with his knives, and again, frustratingly, Dick isn’t fast enough to to block it. He ends up pinned against the rooftop in a hold that would break a regular person’s spine, and he isn’t strong enough to break free. Dick grits his teeth as he strains uselessly against the Talon’s grip. It doesn’t make sense. They’re supposed to have the same abilities.

“You must be Grayson. We thought the Bats had captured and dissected you.” A clawed hand reaches out and picks up a batarang lying near Dick’s head, then tosses it aside like a piece of trash. “But it seems you’re working with them now. Traitor.”

Dick lifts his head to snarl right back, only to have his face smashed into the concrete.

The Talon leans down to speak in Dick’s ear, his voice silky and dark like the Owls they work for. “Tell you what—I’ll give you one chance. Surrender and I’ll take you back to the Court. I’m sure they could find some use for you. Fight me, and you’re not walking away from this.”

Dick catches flickering movement out of the corner of his eye, and smiles. “I don’t need to fight you,” he says. The Talon looks up in alarm and Dick takes his opportunity to tear himself free of the Talon’s grasp, rolling out of the way as the freeze bomb lands.

It’s a close call. His back gets coated with thick frost from the swirling explosion, the chill cutting him to the bone, but Dick fares a lot better than the Talon suspended in an icy prison a few feet away.

Cass hurries over worriedly. “You’re—“

“I’m fine,” Dick reassures her, waving her concern away as he brushes the frost off his shoulders. She shakes her head urgently and points.

“You’re _bleeding_.”

 

* * *

 

Dark blood seeps steadily from between Dick’s ribs. He watches the black stain on his shirt spread without concern, as though it’s only a scratch, pressing his hand against it now and then to check if it has stopped yet.

He insists that the wound will close on its own soon, that the cold must be interfering with his regeneration temporarily, but Cass senses that he’s more worried than he lets on. Something is wrong. They wait a minute and the bleeding does not slow down, so Cass pulls a roll of bandages out of her belt.

“We shouldn’t waste our time,” protests Dick as she wraps the wound. He fidgets worse than Bruce does when he’s hurt. “We need to find Damian. If there are more Talons—“

“We will,” Cass says firmly. “First a stop. Quick.”

“But—“

“With me,” she says, and, however reluctantly, he follows. They’re only a few blocks away from Barbara’s clocktower, luckily. Cass keeps a worried eye on Dick, watching for any sign that he might stumble or collapse, but he makes it to the clocktower without incident. Perhaps she _is_  overreacting about the wound… Still, she doesn’t want to take that kind of chance.

“Cass!” exclaims Barbara, already turned and waiting before they drop from the hatch. One look at her face tells Cass the woman is very unhappy with her. “And I see you’ve brought a guest.”

Dick steps forward. “My name’s Dick—“

“Grayson, I know. I’ve heard a lot about you. You can call me Oracle.” Barbara turns back to Cass with a stern scowl, though it has lost some of its heat, and Cass doesn’t miss the way she tucks her hair behind her ear and glances back at Dick. _I_ _nteresting_. “I’ve been trying to radio you for half an hour. What happened to your comm?”

“Lost,” says Cass, shrugging. Somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

Barbara sighs, returning to her computers. With some rapid typing she fills the glowing screens with surveillance videos—the sight of a small, cloaked boy running across rooftops, unharmed, fills Cass with hope and relief. “Well, I _did_  have a location on Damian, heading south near Amusement Mile, but there’s no telling where he could be now. I’m still waiting for him to show up on my cameras again.”

“At least we have somewhere to start,” says Dick. “We can split up and search from there.”

Barbara raises an eyebrow at the darkening bandages wrapped around his ribs. “I thought Talons didn’t bleed.”

“They don’t. Not this much.” Cass pushes Dick towards the old couch in the corner of the room. Barbara keeps it around for them. It’s seen plenty of injuries before. “You stay here.”

“No,” Dick protests. “It’ll be faster if we both search.”

“There are other Talons. You can’t fight like this.”

“I told you, I’m fine. It’ll heal soon.”

“Then you won’t have to stay long.”

They glare at each other stubbornly for a long time. Cass wins, of course—she beats _Bruce_  at glaring contests, this is nothing. Dick relents and sinks down into the cushions. “Ten minutes, and then I’m leaving.”

“Twenty.”

“Let’s say fifteen,” Barbara reasons. “Don’t worry, Cass. I’ll keep a close eye on him until then.”

“I know you will,” Cass says under her breath, just loud enough for Barbara to hear.

Barbara frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cass only smirks before swinging herself up through the hatch.

 

* * *

 

“You’re not what I expected Oracle to be,” Dick can’t help remarking, watching the woman cycle between tasks on five different computer monitors with ease.

“Oh?” she asks. “And what were you expecting?”

"I mean, with the amount of work you do for the others, all that hacking and research… I thought Oracle must have been a group of people, like them,” Dick explains hastily. He hasn’t quite gotten used to talking to people after years of quietly taking orders. “But it’s all you. I’m impressed.”

There’s a thoughtful pause. “You’re not what I expected a Talon to be, either,” she says. After a few minutes of working in silence she turns her chair around. “Let’s take a look at that wound. If it hasn’t started healing on its own yet we should stitch it up, at least.”

“It’s better,” Dick says after the black-stained bandages are removed. Thick blood like oil is still seeping, but the wound has shrunk at the edges. Oracle only gives him a doubtful look and reaches for the suturing kit.

An alert blares from her workstation before she can make the first stitch, the computer monitors flashing warnings. She swears under her breath and rushes back to the console, pulling her headset back on.

Dick sees the emergency clearly on the monitors: Talons, far too many of them, converging on Cassandra’s position. Even she can’t fight off that many by herself—she needs help. He quickly wraps his bandages up and gathers his gear, hoping to slip out while Oracle’s busy to avoid wasting precious time on an argument, but it’s not necessary.

“Go,” she tells him without looking over. “I’ll send what backup I can. Stay safe.”

 

* * *

 

Dark blood soaks Damian’s front and drips from his hands as he backs away, panting. The Talon in front of him is dead. Defeated. It has to be. It can’t possibly regenerate again, not after _this_. 

His arm trembles with exhaustion as he carefully sheathes his sword. This was a hard-won victory. Damian is not too arrogant to admit, if only to himself, that he may have underestimated the Talons once again. He cannot win a repeat of that fight. He needs to find the nearest safe place to catch his breath before any of his fallen opponent’s allies find him. 

A sudden presence behind Damian on the rooftop has him whirling around, grabbing his sword once more. Even if he doesn’t stand a chance, an al Ghul does not go down without a fight. But it’s not an enemy he faces.

“Damian.” Cassandra hurries toward him. When she realizes the blood he’s covered with is too dark to be his own, she smiles with utter relief. Damian works hard to keep his own relief from showing on his face. He’s never been this glad to see her… but _she_  doesn’t need to know that.

“You scared me,” she says, unflinchingly honest. Before he can sneer and shrug away the hands resting on his shoulders, they both snap to alertness at the faint sound of movement coming from behind the chimney. And then from by the fire escape, and the rooftops around them, and crawling up the walls of the building. 

Talons swarm them from all sides, hooded and covered with gleaming knives. Damian instinctively calculates based on the number of opponents and his condition and knows that even with Cassandra at his side the chances seem grim. They may die here, because of Damian’s mistakes. His mother and father will be so ashamed.

“I’m— I’m sorry,” he tells Cassandra, eyes wide. “I shouldn’t have—“

“Later,” she says firmly, and hands him a freeze ray from her belt, taking a protective stance beside him. 

 

* * *

 

Damian’s hands are numb on the handle of the freeze gun as he blasts the approaching Talon with pure cold. 

A glint of metal flashes in the corner of his eye, flying towards him, as he finishes entombing the Talon in ice. Instinctively, he reaches for his own dagger, for something to intercept with, but his fingers are too slow and clumsy from the cold. 

There’s a dark blur of movement, and the flying weapon never hits Damian. He thinks it’s his father, or Cassandra, but when he turns he sees that he’s wrong— it’s Grayson, who is now grappling with the Talon with their own knife, grabbed out of the air.

“Hold him still!” Damian yells, trying to take aim with the freeze gun. They both move with superhuman agility and he would prefer not to incapacitate an ally when there are still plenty of opponents to fight.

“Trying…” Dick grunts, wrestling the other Talon into a chokehold. Damian pulls the trigger, and Dick lets go and leaps away at just the right time to avoid being frozen in place.

Dick somersaults to a halt next to Damian, only slightly frosted. “Glad to see you in one piece,” he tells Damian, brushing snow of his shoulders. “We make a pretty good team.”

Damian is about to make a scoffing reply when several things occur at once: He hears Cassandra yell from across the rooftop; his father’s distinctive shadow descends upon them, and Dick is tackled by another Talon at full speed. The two go flying over the edge of the rooftop and crashing into the alley below.

“No!” Damian shouts. He runs towards the edge but is promptly yanked back by his father’s unyielding grasp. It only takes a moment for the enemy Talon to return, clambering up out of the alley and getting blasted into an icicle by Tim.

Damian’s eyes aren’t on the fight. He waits another moment—that’s all it should take—but Grayson doesn’t emerge from the alley. 

 

* * *

 

The sensation of waking up has become an unfamiliar one. Dick hasn’t slept since his resurrection, and awakening from his stasis pod was an agonizing struggle, nothing like this quiet return to awareness.

For just a moment he believes he’s still in his training days, his limbs stiff from the previous day’s lessons and tests, everything beyond only a bad dream.

Dick slowly eases himself up on the bed, his body reluctant to obey. “How long—?”

“Three days. That’s how long it’s taken your injuries to heal,” Bruce says, examining the readings on a nearby machine. “You still have some minor fractures, but at the rate you’re healing they should be repaired within a few hours.”

“What?” Dick stares, stunned. It should only take seconds, maybe a couple minutes for the most grievous wounds. Not hours, and certainly never days.

He is suddenly too aware of the absence of the others. Only him and Bruce in this cold, clinical room, and the graver than usual look on the other man’s face tells him this is on purpose. He’s here to deliver difficult news, without interference. Something is very wrong.

“The amount of electrum in your blood has dropped significantly,” Bruce says. Dick stares back at him blankly, so he explains: “That element is what the Court of Owls used to give you your enhanced abilities. It’s also the only thing keeping you alive.” 

“Oh,” Dick says flatly. The prospect of death is not so shocking now that he’s gone through it once, but still unpleasant. “Can… Can we just inject me with more?”

“It’s not that simple. We’re not even sure why this is happening, whether it’s an anomaly or a normal part of your condition. If there is a regular procedure, we wouldn’t know where to begin. We don’t have enough information on your physiology.”

Bruce looks at Dick questioningly as he speaks, but Dick can only shrug. The science behind his own resurrection is a mystery to him, the Court of Owls could have used dark magic for all he knows.

“Is everyone else okay?” he asks. “Damian and—“

Bruce’s face softens slightly. “They’re fine. Tim and I arrived in time to help them defeat the last Talons and fish your body out of the alley.” He turns back to examine the monitor of one of the many medical devices hooked up to Dick, crossing his arms and frowning. “It’s yourself you need to worry about. If we don’t figure out how to fix this soon, you’ll begin degenerating. The only way to stop it in the meantime is to put you into stasis. We’ve encountered that technology before. I’m confident we can replicate—“

“No,” says Dick, shivering at the memory. “I won’t be put in one of those pods. Never again.”

“You may not have a choice,” Bruce says bluntly. “You could have had months left, before, but with the injuries you’ve sustained you might only have a week before your body starts failing. We’ll do everything we can to stop the process, but if we can’t…” He glances away uncomfortably and his jaw sets in a stubborn way that reminds Dick very much of Damian. “We won’t let you die. I won’t give up on you a second time.”

 

* * *

 

When Dick limps his way out of bed and into the rest of the cave, Tim is leading a strategy meeting with Cass and Damian regarding an outrageously dangerous mission to infiltrate the Court of Owls’ bases to steal technology and scientific research.

“Oh good, you’re up,” Tim says brightly, looking up from the notes he’s scribbling onto some blueprints. “Just in time to help us with this plan.”

At first Dick can’t believe they’re serious. But the amount of planning they’ve done is considerable—the table is covered with files and notes, the computer screens showing complicated schematics. They’ve been working on this for hours, days, the entire time he was unconscious. “You can’t do this,” he insists. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Well… we are. We already decided,” Cass says, as if it’s that simple. For a moment the cave doesn’t feel so cold as Dick realizes what they are willing to do for him. Him, an ex-Talon they’ve known for a few short weeks, yet they’re ready to fight for him like he’s one of their own.

He tries to protest. “A mission like this is suicide—“

“Exactly,” Damian agrees, dramatically sweeping papers off the table with his arm. “That is what I’ve been saying. Drake’s plan is terrible.”

Tim scowls and picks his hard work up off the floor. “I don’t see you volunteering any ideas.”

“We could infiltrate one of my Grandfather’s bases and use a Lazarus pit,” says Damian without missing a beat. Cass and Tim exchange a startled look, and even Bruce looks over from his computer. “The only problem is that it might reverse your condition and restore you completely to life.”

“The _only_  problem?” Tim exclaims at the same time Dick asks, “That’s a _problem_?”

Damian shrugs haughtily. “I suppose if you don’t mind losing all of your abilities and being completely mediocre…”

“I wasn’t mediocre before the Court turned me into this,” says Dick, splaying his black-veined hands. “I was still their Talon. I still could have taken any of you in a fight.”

The boy sniffs. “Doubt that.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Dick says. He turns to the others. A feeling swells in him, one he can’t name because it is _hope_ , something so lost to him that he’d forgotten it existed. “We can, right? These Lazarus pits can actually change me back?”

“No! I can’t even—“ Tim makes a strangled noise of frustration, then takes a deep breath and rakes his hair away from his face. “I mean, maybe. Yes, but. Even if it _did_ —!”

Bruce places a hand on Tim’s shoulder to silence him and explains, “They might, but not without cost. The Lazarus pits cause extreme mental instability. Not many can withstand the effects. I don’t think you’ll be able to.” Bruce takes Dick aside for a moment, and tells him quietly, “I know about the labyrinth, Dick. I know what the Court put you through. A Lazarus pit may revert you to that state, or worse.”

“I want to be alive again,” Dick says. “I don’t care about the risks. I don’t care if I die trying. If there’s even a chance… then I want to take it.”

Bruce watches Dick, considering it for what feels like an eternity, then turns to nod at the others and walks away. Before Dick knows what’s happening, Tim has pulled up schematics on League of Assassins bases and started discussing the new strategy with Cass and Damian.

 

* * *

 

“Are you okay?” Tim asks, seeing Dick stumble as he returns to his seat on the private jet Bruce arranged for this trip. The Batplane isn’t large enough to seat them all. It’s going to be a long, difficult trek from their planned landing spot to the League of Assassins’ hidden base, and Dick knows his body doesn’t have much time left before it gives out.

“I’m fine,” Dick replies, because he has to be. He just has to make it through this, just a little longer.

It’s only the three of them—Tim, Dick, and Cass, in the passenger area. Bruce is in the cockpit piloting, and Damian insisted on being his co-pilot.

Cass is sitting next to Dick, and she isn’t fooled, of course. She puts her hand over his on the armrest. “You’re not.”

Dick looks out the window. The mountains are getting closer. “I will be soon.”

He can feel his body deteriorating. It doesn’t hurt—actually the opposite, he feels even less. Sensations are becoming duller. His limbs are slowing getting weaker, more stiff. His movements slower, like the connection between his mind and body is fraying.

This is his only shot. If the Lazarus pit doesn’t work, or if the mission fails, he’ll become nothing but a corpse, again.

Tim leans forward and tells him seriously, “Listen… If you get a clear path to the pit, you jump in, got it?”

“I won’t just abandon the rest of you.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Tim insists. “We’re professionals.” Cass nods in agreement and gives Dick a reassuring smile. 

She gives him the same smile later, across the bloody melee, as she fights back numerous assassins as easily as breathing. It’s the last thing he sees before he takes the orders he’s been given and dives into the pool of acid-green water.

 

* * *

 

The water is cold. Colder than it looked, with the way it glowed so brightly. But ache of the cold slips away until he doesn’t feel anything at all. He sinks until everything is very dark and very still. He doesn't need to breathe the way he used to, so he floats calmly, with no panicked urge to return to the surface for air.

Time slips past, he isn’t sure how much. He doesn’t know if he’s awake or not. Eventually, he forgets to think of such things.

The dark water swirls and becomes the darkness of the labyrinth, the shadowed corner he waited in during the duel with his predecessor. The prior Talon had been stronger, more experienced, but he is younger and faster and ready to prove himself. It’s all very easy. He stands over the dead Talon, sick and triumphant all at once. In another room, the Owls are watching and applaud him.

But he’s not done yet. He stalks down the paths and around the corners, a knife in each hand. The monster in the labyrinth, hunting its prey. He steps over his parents’ bloody bodies without a glance. Getting closer now—a cape flutters, disappearing around the corner just ahead, and he runs.

He blinks— and he’s in the centre of the maze. The towering marble owl gazes down at him from its perch atop the fountain, water dripping from its feathers.

He blinks again, and now Bruce and Tim are sprawled in front of the fountain, dead and broken. Killed. He walks past them and drinks from the pool of poisoned water like an addict. The water is green and cold. He remembers it being lukewarm. Distantly, he remembers the fear and pain of the visions he once saw. This time is different—he feels rage, the clouding of his mind except for that single point of clarity—to hunt, to hurt.

There is more prey to be found. The Talon’s mission isn’t complete.

Talon follows the sound of footsteps through the twists and turns of the maze. When he finally turns the last corner and sees his victim, he takes a deep breath of anticipation. It feels like coming up for air.

His masters’ orders echo in his ears as he grabs the boy by the throat. His victim fights, struggles, and it hurts, but he holds on tightly. This is what he should have—

It _hurts_ —

Dick blinks. He is dripping wet and his mouth is dry. “What…” The green rage pulses in his head with his heartbeat, like a migraine, blinding him with agony. He closes his eyes and falls to his knees. They hit the hard stone painfully.

Pain. 

He hasn’t felt that in a while. Now, suddenly, there is a lot of it.

The world is blurry around him, like that dark water. He focuses hard but he can only make out glimpses—he sees red blood on himself, on his hands, and he sees Damian’s wide eyes. His whirling brain puts the two things together and, in his horror, he stops breathing.

He hears Cass’s voice somewhere above his head. “It’s yours.”

“Oh.” Belatedly, he notices the batarang stabbed in his thigh. “Ow.” He sucks in a long gasp of air. He needs to explain, to apologize. Not all of what he saw was a hallucination, he knows that. Some of it was real. “I didn’t… I’m sorry, I—“

“It’s okay. You stopped… I stopped you.” She kneels next to him and places her hands on his shoulders, steadying, helping him stay upright. “I promised, remember? I would protect Damian.”

“Thank you,” Dick breathes, before he passes out. 

They take him back home.

 

* * *

Dick slams face-first into the training mats, yet again—he’s going to have the taste of rubber in his mouth for the rest of the day. Cass stands above him smugly, not a drop of sweat on her.

“You never relied on your powers? You’re sure?” she teases, reaching down a hand to help him back onto his feet.

“Yeah, okay. You were right.” He straightens up, wincing at the painful twinge in his knee. “I’ll get used to this regular body again soon, though. Just wait.”

She smiles. “I know you will.”

Dick smiles back, grateful for her faith in him. He doesn’t think he would have made it through the past few weeks without her. The aftereffects of the Lazarus pit were not pleasant. The surges of anger and madness that felt like green acid pumping through his veins, moments when reality slipped away and he forgot who he was and where. The nightmares that he woke from screaming.

Out of all of them, Cass understood the best. She has been through it before. She hasn’t said much in detail about her own experience with the Lazarus pit—and now that Dick has endured the same, he knows why—but she knows, and she was _there_. She sat with him when he couldn’t be alone, and kept everyone away when he needed to be by himself. She reminded him who he was when he couldn’t remember, and stopped him from hurting himself or the others.

Nobody said being reborn would be easy. During the last, worst throes of his affliction, when he woke from a nightmare sweaty and shaking in pain, he saw a familiar symbol shining in the night sky outside his window and felt exactly that—reborn. The madness broke. He was weaker than he’d ever been, but in control of himself for the first time.

At the bottom of the Lazarus pit, he felt a moment of perfect clarity. In that waking moment, he felt it again, and saw the path his new life will take. He will fight alongside his new family, and not for the purpose of getting vengeance on the Court, but to help the people who have helped him so much. To help them protect their city.

And Bruce finally agreed.

Alfred is waiting for Dick outside the locker room, a carefully folded bundle in his arms. “I’ve made the alterations to your suit that you requested, Master Dick,” he says, handing it over. “You may go try it on again. For the last time, I hope.” 

Dick unfurls it in front of him and looks at the blue emblem with satisfaction.

Bruce walks past them on his way to the showers post-workout, a towel draped around his neck. He frowns at the thin kevlar of the uniform. “Removing that armour was a mistake. The integrity of the bulletproofing—“

“That’s only a problem if I’m slow enough to get hit,” Dick argues. “The uniform was too heavy, I want to be able to _move_.”

“It was no heavier than all those metal plates you used to wear,” Alfred points out.

“But now I get to choose.”

They’re both quiet, having no response for that, but Dick knows by the way they glance at each other that this debate is far from finished. 

Dick heads down the stairs to the equipment storage. The air in the cave used to feel like ice-water to him, but not anymore, which is fortunate because he’s been spending a lot of time down here lately.

He takes a grappling gun off the shelf. The weight of it is heavy with promise—no more effortless zombie strength for him, but he doesn’t mind. The sight of the warm skin of his own hands is something he still marvels at.

The Court took a lot from him, but he’s been getting some of it back.

Tim smiles at Dick from the workbench where he’s preparing his utility belt. “You excited for your field test?”

“I can’t wait to jump off a building.”

“We _just_ brought you back to life, Grayson,” Damian remarks, fastening his own utility belt around his waist. His voice is stern but he smiles under his mask. Dick isn’t the only one having a field test tonight.

Despite their concerns, the first thing Dick does on patrol is leap off a tower into a free fall.


End file.
